Monday, 15 September 2014

It’s interesting how the Unionist Parties, all of them, say that the fate of the NHS in Scotland is ‘devolved’, that therefore it becomes wholly the choice of the Scottish Parliament to privatise, or not to privatise, all the while claiming that NHS spending in England is increasing, so our ‘Barnett Equivalent’ is increasing.Perhaps some of us are stupid enough to believe that. Westminster certainly thinks we are right now, at least judging by its actions.It’s a bit like me giving you my car, which you absolutely need but don’t have the money to run. I’ll tell you it’ll be fine, just give me your vote and everything will work out, I’ll even pay for the maintenance, I’ll pay for the roads too, the infrastructure, I just won’t tell you it’s actually your money I’m using.I’m not going to tell you today, when I need that vote, that tomorrow, after you’ve given it to me, I’ll stop giving you the money to buy petrol,even though I know you don’t have the ability to buy it yourself. I won’t ever actually ask for the car back, why should I? Effectively, I’ll just stop you using it so I don’t have to maintain it any longer; that means I can ignore the infrastructure too.My car in your hands, the NHS as we know it in Westminster’s hands, both a bit useless after that vote has been used, both of little value once the currency of negotiation has been spent. Without the ability to fund its NHS being firmly in Scotland’s hands, it’s not Scotland’s NHS. It never will be, like anything else, if we can’t fund it, like a car with no petrol, it’s pointless.There’re two things we all need to be aware of when it comes to funding.Firstly, Barnett’s on the way out. No Westminster party has pledged to maintain it; mind you, after the student loans debacle, amongst others, those promises wouldn’t be worth much even if they were made.Secondly, NHS spending in England has increased, but a significant part of that increase now funds shareholder profits, not patient care. It’s still ‘government spending’ they argue in London Town, so Scotland benefits. They’re right as well, but only for today.After you spend that vote on Thursday, if you spend it foolishly, if you vote ‘No’, here’s what will happen to your NHS, amongst other cherished institutions.The main English parties have all said they are committed to Austerity. In actual fact, they’ve no choice; they spend so much on servicing a debt created by their economic mismanagement that it’s possibly their only true option.UK Debt payments, just for interest, already equal four times the cost of Scotland’s NHS, by 2020 they’re going to be close to outstripping the cost of the entire UK’s health care system. That money has to be ‘found’ from somewhere, and they can’t indenture Scottish Oil or sell off the Royal Mail again.The money will be found from the same place it’s always found, our taxes. In this case, stealth taxes once more. Just like the pensions raids, except now it’ll be an NHS raid.The NHS in England is largely privately run these days; we just pay the bills and the profits on top. It’s ripe for shifting from the public books.As that shifting process initiates, expect co-pays to be introduced in England, the think tanks and committees are already sounding them out, the responses they’re getting are positive.The next stage will be a supplemental ‘tax’ or extra NI contribution, after that employer funded insurance will become de-rigueur. Each small step not that big of a deal alone, each small step so singularly significant moving that £100 billion plus from the government books to our own. Each small step contributing to City profits, even as the square mile contributes to the party coffers.Expect, over the course of several years, the NHS to go from ‘universal entitlement’ to a ‘needs based benefit’.As this all happens, even at just a twenty pound co-pay per visit, and three visits a year, that’s 3.6 billion shaved from the public budget in England. That’s about 1/3 of Scotland’s NHS costs, and that proportionate allocation won’t come north anymore, even in the unlikely event Barnett survives. That twenty pound co-pay is only half what Labour’s proposing mind you, Red-Ed is on record at £120 per person a year, with other’s in Westminster’s circles suggesting a tenner a month a head ‘access fee’ per user, so that’d be over seven billion, it’ll cover a bit more mismanagement then?Typically it can be expected that any tests and procedures will also come with their individual co-pays, and all this will happen, because folk are only too willing to ‘pay a co-pay to save their NHS’, not realizing that even although the staff in front of them might be wearing NHS insignias, they actually aren’t NHS employees. The public doesn’t realize that what ‘they’re paying to save’ is already effectively dead, in England.Once these conditions become the norm, its reasonable, based upon past trends, to expect those still using the NHS to become vilified as are the public health recipients in America by the US right wing media, they’ll be just another round of ‘benefits scroungers’.When it’s all done, just remember, you cast that vote, and with an opportunity to truly change the way folk get treated in these Islands, throughout the entirety of these islands, if you cast it with poor judgement, you’ll have used up all your currency, and Westminster certainly isn’t going to call for free critical care or life support for a cause which it views as simply creating wasteful constitutional crises. If Westminster can stop it, there’ll be no more ‘wasteful’ constitutional amendments, otherwise known as devolution.Remember too, on some future day, when you personally need that life support, from the birth of a child to major surgery, or even simply your elderly care in the years to come, as it is in England already, you’d better be prepared to pay.There you have it, it’s quite simple really, David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Alistair Darling, Ed Miliband or the man who helped start the sell-off of the NHS, and raided your pensions, Gordon Brown. Would you buy a used car from them under any conditions, not just these conditions? How about a soon to be very underfunded NHS Perhaps the promise of a scandal free Westminster works for you?If you wouldn’t do any of these, why would you buy a Union?

Thursday, 11 September 2014

Regardless of the outcome of the vote on the 18th, today marks the day the Union died - again! I say again because I wrote a similarly titled blog in 2011. Perhaps we exist in a strange Union led Zombie Apocalypse?

Today marks the day that the ‘No Campaign’ went into terminal meltdown, that the ‘offers were put on the table’ that the lie that these things take years was exposed.

Today marks the day that David Cameron’s leadership was called into question, in the last twenty four hours, we’ve seen those calls reverberate, because of what; because of two polls? Surely, two polls don’t create a reason, in England anyway, for presenting a PM with a P45.

No, the reason for the meltdown is the drop in Sterling and its impact. That first poll showed the City of London and its traders that they might just ‘lose Scotland’, so they did what good business folk might be expected to do, they started to price it in to Sterling’s value.

Firstly, if a currency union hadn’t been rejected by their lackey’s in Downing Street, it’s very unlikely they’d be concerned at all, not much anyway. If the UK didn’t have lunatics minding the asylum, none of us would be in this position. For several days the currency has been dropping. I’m getting hard hit by that currency drop, can I just say I’m conflicted, between ‘Damn’ and ‘Woo-hoo!’, it’s a hit I’ll happily take.

Secondly, Scotland represents just about 10% of the UK economy, so if we were a sponge, a soak, a drain, then dumping the deadwood could only see Sterling strengthen, stabilize or ‘firm up’ its position. The loss of size would most probably be more than offset by the reduction in liability. Effectively the drop in value by the markets is saying we’re a major contributor to Sterling and the UK’s credit-worthiness.

Put simply, if you’re the bank, and the junkie sponging kid wants to leave home, you might consider a loan to mum and dad. If the major breadwinner leaves and the junkie kid stays to keep draining resources, when the remaining parent who’s shown bad money skills comes along for another loan, your reaction might be a bit different.

It’s the prospect of that reaction, of the near calamity that the remaining UK would be forced into that’s causing the current panic in London Town. Let’s face it, if a kid’s a drain and a problem, we’re happy to see it leave, make its own way and grow up a bit in the big bad world. If that kid’s contributing and useful, there’s just a possibility we might not be so eager. Now just imagine if we’d borrowed on the strength of that kid’s wages and couldn’t pay it back without them?

Wouldn’t we fight to keep them under our roof?

Wouldn’t we argue against the risks and consequences of leaving?

Wouldn’t we hide our true predicament from them?

If we were unscrupulous, we absolutely would. There’s one thing we’d have to know though, we’d have to be aware that one day, some day, we’d be ‘found out’.

Today, the Union has been ‘found out’. Like the child who’s now growing into the knowledge, that information, that genie, it can’t be stuffed back into its bottle. It’s just not that compliant.

The referendum might fail, although I doubt it. Despite the outcome, today marks the day the Union died. Those powers being promised, the soul searching in Westminster, the hand wringing and finger pointing by our ultra biased media, in the event of a ‘NO’, they’ll fade away. It’s likely that those promised extra powers will too. There’ll be ‘unforeseen difficulties’ and they’ll never be implemented in any sort of functional way.

The thing is, the Scots won’t forget, Scotland is now a nation re-energized, it has recovered much of its political will. If ‘Yes’ isn’t successful on this occasion, there will be another, because the people won’t forget. However, next time don’t expect Westminster to agree, they’ve just had too big a fright.

‘Next time’ it’ll possibly even be a Unilateral Declaration of Independence that’s voted through by the people, after a party wins power on that platform, and it possibly won’t be far away. You see, you can lie, cheat and steal from the kids, but once their trust is finally betrayed, it’s over.

‘Next time’, be it referendum or declaration, can be prevented, but only with wholesale power transference to Edinburgh, power transference so meaningful and so utterly comprehensive that Scots will come to believe that we’re truly ‘better together’. The issue is that if any Cabinet attempted this, the riots in England would be unimaginable. Politically, such a transference of power is next door to impossible.

History will show September 9th 2014 to have been important, not only will it have been an excellent birthday present for my mother’s 80th, the day Flodden’s loss began the effective path to Union, and the day Mary of Scots was crowned, it will also mark the effective end of Scotland as a proclaimed dependency, and I say ‘proclaimed’ as it’s been such in the popular UK media for centuries. I say ‘proclaimed’ because the markets are right now, right here, telling a very different story. They’re telling a story similar to that of immensely prosperous Luxembourg, tiny, incredibly wealthy, it also got its independence today, 147 years ago.

One other thing, today was also the day in 1914 that the Irish met at the Gaelic conference and initiated the process that would become the revolt to free a nation. Ours is simpler, it doesn't involve guns, but just like theirs, it’s thrown Westminster into a state of confusion and panic.

A resumption of statehood for Scotland is drawing close; only the final date really has a question over it, that and how simple the process will be.

So, in a few days, there’s a choice. Do it now and do it simply, or suffer more and do it later.

For Scotland, it’s a bit like the difference between flossing today and a root canal tomorrow.

Wednesday, 3 September 2014

Son I just wrote thisI thought you might like to knowThat I chose to vote Yes‘Cause a Yes vote provided hopeWhat the future’s holdin’No-one can rightly knowWas tired of the same old scriptAnd what’s next only time will show

I knew you'd ask at some stageI look forward to us talking about it one daySo here’s the story of a hopeful guessCause you're part of the reason that I voted yesWhen I was your age, we had some discontent wintersLike in the fairy tales there was a Witch of WestminsterWith the power and the contrast of a comic book villainShe's passed away now but we didn’t say good riddance‘Cause by the time she passed she was a feeble old ladyWho forgot what she was doing when she was going placesYou should always treat people how you’d like to be treated‘Cause the hurt and anger she left is deep seatedIn school they stopped our free milkIt could be said in a wider context they stopped our free willYou can’t always separate feelings from cold factsFrom the school bus I read graffiti saying ‘No Poll Tax’See in 1979 people voted to control their own realityBut it didn’t happen on a technicalityThen in 1997 they said it wouldn’t workBut they supposed letting us try couldn’t hurtNow in 2014 they asked the question‘Do you want to be independent?’I remember thinking, if we didn’t answer YesYou could be 18 before they’d ask us again

Son I just wrote this

This isn’t about the colour of skinOr where you were born, or who you call kinIt’s about pure and simple geographyAnd caring for everyone responsiblyIt’s about people facing poverty with immunityAnd building and supporting our communitiesToo many people want off the path we’re followingIt’s time to change how we ‘do’ politicsResponsibility and independenceLeading by example of the messages we’re sendin’Character traits we hope for our kids one daySo why wouldn’t we want it for our country?See the older you get the less you see things in black and whiteAnd I’m just trying to do what I think is rightJust simply voting by Yes, the problem isn’t solvedBut you can’t change the world taking no risks at allSpin Doctors twisted strands of stories to control the plotsLike Rumpelstiltskin spinning gold from strawWeaving threads like Charlotte’s spider webAnd the trolls under the bridge became CybermenIn a time of recession, food banks and destitutionWorldwide turmoil with very little resolutionViolence and terror as press wizards cast their best illusionsWe were part of a peaceful revolution

Son I just wrote this

Some said we had our heads controlled by our heartsBut you make decisions with both by and largeAs for those felt their hearts were controlled by their headsThey told the story of the goose that laid the golden eggMeaning that sticking as we are was the safest betWhich is basically succumbing to playground threatsAnd to me that just wasn’t making sense‘Cause there’s the possibility for real change insteadThey say yir home’s where yir heart isFrom Oor Wullie’s shed to Doctor Who’s TardisBut it’s also true that yir hearts where yir home isAnd it won’t be that long ‘til you’re grown with yir own kidsOf course I had reservations, who didn’t?Despite the white paper, Scotland’s future isn’t writtenIt’s wrong that a politician can only be the shepherd or the wolfCause that way they either want you for your flesh or for your woolThe biggest triumph of the 21st century stateWas to convince us that having a dream is a cliché1% of the world has 90% of the wealthAnd this system says to step on folks while helping yirselfI hope you’re hearing these thoughts with amazementAnd inequity is consigned to history pagesI don’t want to see another lost generationRioting, frustrated and cross with their parents

Son I just wrote thisI thought you might like to knowThat I chose to vote Yes‘Cause a Yes vote provided hopeWhat the future’s holdin’No-one can rightly knowWas tired of the same old scriptAnd what’s next only time will show

Monday, 1 September 2014

We heard it again last week, it’s been voiced before by MPs, top civil servants and several Lords a Leaping. Interestingly it would seem that only those with a vested interest in the British State appear to care about this. Joe and Jemima public haven’t really had it at the forefront of their concerns, at least in so far as media reports have indicated.

Well, we’re coming down to the wire, only eighteen days to go until the vote, soon it’ll be less than ten, and I’m betting we won’t hear more, much more anyway, about the lack of contingency in case of a yes vote.

You see, it’s a fairly safe bet that Westminster does have a contingency plan; only, they can’t afford for anyone to know about it. The reason that they do not have a contingency plan for such a momentous event, as they’ve acknowledged this referendum as being, can only fall into one of three categories.

Firstly, everyone in London Town is an ostrich, every last one who counts as a professed ‘leader of the British Isles’ is a certifiable idiot with their head stuck firmly in the few remaining sandy bits of the Thames embankments. While it would be comforting in a way to go with this scenario, which gets its credence due to the distinct ignorance and highly dubious decision making that’s come from that region in times past, it’s not really the most probable of options, now is it?

Secondly, it could simply be that we’ve been getting lied to. That the ‘difficulty’ experienced by both sides in disentangling the Union will actually cause minimal upheaval in everyone’s lives, with the possible exclusion of perhaps a few civil servants. Based upon the garbage and lies fed to all and sundry during this debate, by the representatives of the ‘mother of parliaments’, this scenario seems much more likely. It’s sad, but should be considered to be streets ahead of option 1 in the probability stakes. It’s sad because it says we elected a bunch of liars, but they were the best of the group offered to us. Now we’re being asked to perpetuate their employment.

The third option is perhaps the most troublesome. You see, option three means never needing a contingency plan, simply because you know it’ll be pointless, simply wasted energy to divert resources to something which you’re certain you can prevent from happening. I’d give it a weight approaching that of, or perhaps even surpassing, option two.

Option three involves many things. However, many things are what Westminster has shown itself capable of. It used the security branches in 1979 to work against Scotland’s interests, as well as that belated 40% rule and counting the dead. There’ve been other incidents too, like the lawyer Willie McRae, who allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself in the head (twice) then throwing the gun away, this after allegedly uncovering something akin to the McCrone report. There’s the last referendum where we voted for a parliament with tax raising powers only to have those powers so diluted by Westminster as to be effectively useless. Even the latest tranche, scheduled for next year can’t be used without hurting ourselves.

Another aspect that just doesn’t ‘ring’ is the disparity in polling data. That alone should have London in a lather, yet while the ‘unofficial polls’ with often massive sample sizes are consistently showing a landslide for ‘Yes’, the ‘official’ polls continue with ‘No’ by a nose.

Ultimately, if we treat option one with the derision deserved, it is certain that there actually is at least one contingency plan out there; one which will allow for London’s elite to remain in control of Scotland or to cut us loose with absolutely minimal impact. It’s an ‘either/or’, I personally can’t see the possibility for any middle ground here.

Up until recently I’d simply thought that with our separate NHS, legal system, educational system etc that we were just being lied to - again. Perhaps an uncomplicated "Velvet Divorce" is to much to hope for.

Now however I have a very real concern. One that has been generated by recent media releases and events, from Jim Murphy’s ‘egging’ (and let’s face it, the only difference this time is that it wasn’t self applied, although we’ve still to uncover just who directed the egg in his direction. What we do know however is it seems to be primarily the nationalist community with an interest in uncovering the perpetrator). Now, add that to recent inflammatory articles appearing in the media indicating "polling carnage" on the 18th, articles which even went so far as to prompt a response from the Police Scotland on September 1st, and we've got a quickly building scenario.

In its best case, a few ‘nutters’ heckling at a handful of polling stations would be unfortunate but ultimately laughable. On the other hand, in a systemic worst-case scenario anything is possible - from missing ballot boxes to calling the fairness of the vote itself into question. Yes, it’d need to be coordinated on a relatively massive scale, but when you largely ‘own’ the output of the media in such circumstances, can anything really be discounted?

Personally, I hope a lot of things can and will be discounted, although I suspect we’ll be approaching October before they can safely be binned.

There’s only one thing that’s certain, London has used every resource and contingency we know of to ensure a ‘No’. On the other hand, if it’s a ‘Yes’ as those on the ground have solid reason to believe, one can only ask what the contingencies are – and why don’t we know about them?

When there is a ‘Yes’ we can be certain those plans will be dusted off; when there is a ‘Yes’ we can only hope that good sense and democracy prevail.